Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, MacArthur’s chief advisor on psychological warfare, wrote in a June 17, 1945, internal memorandum that the air war on Japan was “one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of noncombatants in all of history.” And Gen. Curtis Le May callously described the victims of the March air raid as being “scorched and boiled and baked to death.”
Consider a few more statistics. The total number of U.S. military deaths in the Pacific war was slightly more than 106,000. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone killed roughly three times that number of civilian noncombatants. In his 1997 book, Japan’s Postwar History, historian Gary D. Allinson writes that a single night-long air raid on Toyama left a mere 4 percent of that city standing. The large city of Yokohama was 58 percent destroyed. And according to Dower, an estimated 1 million civilians were killed in the 66 cities bombed.
Consider a few more statistics. The total number of U.S. military deaths in the Pacific war was slightly more than 106,000. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone killed roughly three times that number of civilian noncombatants. In his 1997 book, Japan’s Postwar History, historian Gary D. Allinson writes that a single night-long air raid on Toyama left a mere 4 percent of that city standing. The large city of Yokohama was 58 percent destroyed. And according to Dower, an estimated 1 million civilians were killed in the 66 cities bombed.
22-25, M
